


meeting

by motherherbivore (Airheart)



Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Eggs, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 18:43:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14939768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Airheart/pseuds/motherherbivore
Summary: The Prime's egg hatches at last.





	meeting

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this last year, blame [BlueMinuet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueMinuet) and his super cute FR dragons

It was an exciting day in the Iacon rookery. The matron Minerva was swamped, caught between her usual work, and the seemingly endless stream of dragons poking their heads into her office to ask after the Prime’s nest. She turned them all away with the same words, “The Prime and his mate will be the first to know, not you!” But she understood their eagerness. The Prime’s clutch had always been the subject of much gossip and interest, and Optimus’s was uniquely special. So much of his administration had been overshadowed by the war, and no one had even thought he would ever find a mate, much less reproduce. Even when the war ended and he bonded with the good doctor Ratchet, given both their advanced age and war-battered frames, there had been no expectation of a brood from them, and so the news of their egg had been met with great surprise, and greater excitement.

Ratchet was not pleased with all the attention. He had given Minerva strict orders to not let anyone near the incubation nest—he was loath to leave the egg with her at all, but neither he nor Optimus had the luxury of staying home with it for all the time it needed. He wanted to keep any information about it from getting out (“It’s our business, not the whole of Cybertron’s!”), but Optimus had persuaded him from it. They only had one egg, strange for a Predacon of Optimus’s size, and that made it all the more interesting. Everyone wanted to know about the egg, even if there wasn’t much to tell. Optimus knew there was an underlying fear that the egg would not make it. The people needed constant reassurance that it was healthy.

So Minerva had two orders: keep everyone away from the egg, and only tell them that it was healthy, nothing more. She had managed so far, but today was to be the day that the egg hatched, and  _ everyone  _ somehow knew it. Probably some nosy doctor (most everyone’s credits were on Knock Out, the nosiest doctor of them all) had calculated it based on what little information had been leaked before Optimus and Ratchet tightened their plating and refused to say more, and quickly spread it to every beast on Cybertron. Now, it seemed that all those beasts were making it a point in their day to visit the rookery and bother Minerva about the egg she wasn’t allowed to talk about. It was taking its toll on her—she was just as excited as anyone else about the egg, and she hated to be so tight-lipped about it. It was such a high-profile task, too, to look after the Prime’s  _ only  _ egg. Her stress showed, in her posture and in her tone when she snapped at her assistants.

But all bad feelings were forgotten the moment she saw the first crack appear in the egg’s luminescent blue shell.

She had to look twice, then thrice at the monitor, just to be sure that she wasn’t seeing things before she flew out of her office so fast that she nearly strained some cables in her wing. Her systems were buzzing, singing with excitement as she made her way to the incubation nest, on the very top level of the rookery, set away from the others. Sure enough, the egg was cracked, and even as she watched it now, the crack grew by a centimeter, and the egg twitched. Minerva shrieked.

In an instant, she had joint channels open to the university hospital and the Hall of Records, transmitting her message as fast as the Grid would allow—images of the egg and its crack, bursts of words that she could scarcely string together in her excitement, but she got the idea across.

The egg was hatching.

Optimus and Ratchet acknowledged her frantic pings before she had even finished sending them, and responded with their estimated arrival times, just a few klicks apart. Their short, terse messages were such a stark contrast to Minerva’s that, just for a moment, she worried that she had jumped the gun. Perhaps she should have waited for the egg to progress a little more before she bothered its parents at work. She quickly pushed that thought away, though, and focused on the egg until the powerful  _ whoosh  _ of Optimus Prime’s enormous wings announced his arrival before he ever said a word.

Minerva quickly shuffled aside to make room for him on the outcropping of metal outside the nest’s entrance, and he alighted beside her, taking care not to cuff her over the head with his wing. His fans were roaring, and heat came off of him in waves—he had pushed himself to get there as fast as possible. Still, he was impressive and regal as he looked at Minerva and asked in deep, reverberating tones,

“How is its progress?”

“It’s coming along at a nice clip,” she told him. “You have a strong one in there, Optimus Prime. It must be eager to come out.”

Optimus hummed in response, lowering his head to peer into the nest. He did not have more questions. Minerva had never met a Predacon who had such faith in the unknown as he did.

Then Ratchet arrived, and Minerva reared back from the platform, allowing him to take her place. She hovered behind the pair of them for a moment.

“You may go, Minerva,” Ratchet told her, his gaze focused on the nest. “I can handle it from here.”

“Of course,” Minerva said.

“Thank you, Minerva,” Optimus said, before she could fly off, “You have done well in caring for our clutch. Your service is deeply appreciated.”

Minerva tried not to look too proud of herself.

“It was my pleasure, Optimus Prime,” she said, and, when neither of them said more, she banked away, leaving them alone to tend to their egg.

Optimus lightly covered Ratchet’s back with one wing, and said, “After you, old friend.”

With an out-cycle of hot air from his vents, Ratchet climbed into the nest, then Optimus folded his wings in tight to his sides and squeezed through the entrance, scales rasping softly over the nest’s malleable metals as he slithered in. There was just enough room for the two of them to lay along the nest’s sides and watch their egg as it shuddered. The crack had grown a bit longer, the loose bit of shell was starting the bulge outwards, and as their fans calmed, Optimus and Ratchet could hear a tapping from inside the egg.

They lay there in silence for many klicks, watching and listening. The tapping got louder, stronger, more insistent as their pup grew impatient to get out, but it still had some ways to go before it would be able to force its little head out. In the Golden Age, the beasts had become more concerned with where a pup would fit in the castes than the pup’s wellbeing, and they lost their reverence for the hatching process. Parents would break the shell themselves once the first crack appeared and pluck away the delicate cables and plugs. It would all be over in a manner of klicks, and the pup would be catalogued in its caste’s network before its optics had even come fully online.

Optimus Prime had resolved long ago to break that habit.

He looked to Ratchet, who was perfectly still, staring intently at the egg. His posture was tense, his plating clenched tight against his frame. Optimus knew that he didn’t like the anticipation. As experienced a medic as he was, as weathered and jaded, Ratchet was nervous now that it was his own egg. Logic told him that it would be fine; his spark told him to worry. Optimus felt his apprehension in their bond, but did not share in it, so did not say anything about it. He flicked his tail to rest over Ratchet’s, reminding him that he was not alone.

A peep came from the egg, followed by an exceptionally large bit of shell chipping off and falling to the nest’s bottom. Optimus and Ratchet both leaned forward, excitement flaring on both ends of their bond.

“Come on, little one,” Ratchet said softly, and, as though it had been waiting for his words, a tiny head popped out of the cracks it had made. A nano-klick later, and the rest of its body tumbled out, crushing a third of the egg with a disproportionately loud  _ crunch _ . 

Their sparks sang as they picked up a third energy signature—miniscule, fluttering, but, without question,  _ alive. _

The pup rolled about on the nest floor for a nano-klick or two, dislodging the cables from its back and limbs. Its optics flickered on and off, pinpricks of cyan in its little face. Optimus was glad to see that it had taken on Ratchet’s square, sturdy frame-type. For now, its metals were only colored in shades of grey and coppery-brown, but the biolights that ran down its back and throat were the same cold color as its optics, the same color of Optimus's. 

Ratchet purred in spite of himself as he watched the pup shuffle around, feeling out its new surroundings and sorting the energy signatures that it could detect. Its external sensory processors weren't completely booted up yet, and it bumped into a few things as it went—bits of shell, a loose cable here and there, the tip of Optimus's claw. He hummed and scooped the little beast up, prompting it to beep and chirrup frantically before it recognized the warmth and energy of one of its creators. Then it promptly went back to exploring, and Optimus had to take care not to let it fall. Ratchet watched fondly from the other side of the nest.

“It looks healthy,” he said. “Quite mobile, in fact. Most pups are sluggish for several klicks after they emerge.” The pup tried to leap from Optimus's claws then, and he only just managed to catch it before it fell. “Impatient.”

“Pro-active,” said Optimus. He set the pup down and gently prodded it in Ratchet's direction. “It is eager.”

“I wonder where it gets that from,” Ratchet said, reminded of a young beast who couldn't stay at his workstation in the Hall of Records and couldn't resist a revolutionary’s words, eons ago. Optimus did not respond to that, just watched the pup crawl across the nest until it walked right into Ratchet's leg. Ratchet stayed still and let it climb on him. 

Minerva came to peek in on them half a joor later, and found them still watching the curious pup fondly as it grasped at the the quilled ruff around Ratchet's neck with its tiny claws, intrigued by the texture and the jingling sound the quills made when they moved against each other. It was a sweet scene. The usual post-emergence procedures could wait. She decided that she would let them be, for a while longer. 


End file.
